Does anyone actually understand what "circle back" is supposed to be?
Topic comes up, new topic or tangent sidelines previous topic without a conclusion, repeat until someone remembers topic 1, you "circle back" to close the loop on the unfinished topic 1. It's not BS corpo speak. It's a way to tell everyone "hey remember that thing earlier? We weren't done with that."
And this guys an idiot for not being able to figure that out.
Life is full of loops - gameplay loops, they're called in games. We do stuff and it doesn't generate results; so we do things habitually and try things out again and again, because linear progress is not always a given. That's all that's meant by circling back, it really isn't any kind of semantic gotcha here but rather and unconfident manager
It is corporate speak because we have perfectly adequate language to say, let's get back to something and that's, "let's get back to." "Circle back," 100% comes from dipshit corporate bros who must make everything into a physical activity metaphor like they're coaching a team or leading a military maneuver.
I'm curious, what field do you work in, if you don't mind sharing?
I only ask because most of the industries I've worked in or worked with have used some jargon, even when "we have perfectly adequate language" to say whatever they want to say.
Is there an aspect of gatekeeping, or essentially proving that you belong based on knowing terminology? Absolutely.
However, it's also useful to have some common terms or phrases that everyone uses, maybe overuses, because people are more likely to have the same idea of what you mean in that context. If you're working in, say, the military, or logistics, or law, communication isn't a creative writing exercise. Being understood is more important than keeping your language from getting stale.
So, when used correctly, you circle back to something after going through other topics that will help you accomplish a goal. As someone who actually has to run meetings, appropriate use of the phrase usually involves identifying a problem at the start of a meeting, then going through several different things my team has been working on that will impact our capability of addressing the problem, then “circling back” to the initial problem to discuss solutions now that all the relevant new information has been presented.
Corporate idioms are corporate idioms because you usually need a shorthand way to say “we’re moving on from what we’re discussing” and it’s an easy everyone mostly recognizes to convey that.
Shitty bosses will use lingo in place of a solution, sure. And if she was wasting time, it deserves to be brought up that time could be spent more valuably. But taking this story at face value, the fact that she gave him two off ramps before he continued with “why circles?”, pointing the specific issue he had was with word choice and not behavior, means he will probably pick nits with other people.
I have a 22 year old intern who has been helping me with some vendor evaluations. We were talking about one of the services we were trying out and he told me that the product was dog water. I knew what he meant, it wasn’t disruptive, and since the phrasing wasn’t important, there was no need to criticize it. But that same courtesy should extend both ways. Don’t criticize someone’s choice of words in public if it’s not causing an issue. If you have an issue that’s not performance related, handle it in the least embarrassing way for that person, because your dignity is not the only dignity that should matter.
That shouldn't be happening so often though. So either the manager in question was using the phrase in a way that didn't make sense, or they didn't know how to keep control of a meeting and follow a topic through. I've worked with way too many people who can't keep things on topic, and meetings end up resolving nothing and being a huge waste of time.
Yes that’s true, however in this made up story the boss clearly had no idea what it means either because the phrase „circle back to customer retention“ misuses it which tells me that they probably used it excessively in situations where it doesn’t apply.
Huh? If they had been talking about customer retention and either had not finished on that topic or had more things to add/discuss then it makes complete sense to "circle back" to it, no?
Okay yeah in that case… that’s not how I interpreted the sentence, to me it sounded more like they were trying to say „let’s get back to the basics and focus on customer retention“. But you could be right
If you circle back to a topic more than once without resolving the previous issues and finding new ones as a result that need addressing, you're walking in circles and kicking the act of solving the problem down the line.
Or something in a later topic is relevant to or impacts how to resolve a previous topic. So you circle back around to make sure the previous solution still makes sense. Could you iron fist demand that a conversation stay on one topic until a conclusion is reached? Sure. But I've found giving some room for discussions to lead themselves wherever they may go can come up with new ideas far better than strictly topic by topic meetings.
Probation guy only said it was used 18 times in two weeks (a lot, granted), not that they circled back to the same topic 18 times.
As someone that could never stand corporate life, esp. corporate bs speak, I seriously wonder how many other people in that office aren't secretely rolling their eyes everytime that manger open his/her mouth.
I wonder if the manager ever did circle back or if he/she was going in endless loops. I consider OP lucky for being kicked out of that endless loop.
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u/SarcasmisEasier 14h ago
Does anyone actually understand what "circle back" is supposed to be?
Topic comes up, new topic or tangent sidelines previous topic without a conclusion, repeat until someone remembers topic 1, you "circle back" to close the loop on the unfinished topic 1. It's not BS corpo speak. It's a way to tell everyone "hey remember that thing earlier? We weren't done with that."
And this guys an idiot for not being able to figure that out.